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Excessive regulation and red tape can drag on economic progress and vitality, that is common knowledge now, especially for smaller buisnesses.

The problem is currying favor towards large corporations. You can't "VOTE" those people out. You can't reform them, you can do that with open and well monitored government.

But when government plays to corrupt buisness oligarchs whose own type of corruption is not as easily detected, then what? Government can actually deal with people from a humanistic standpoint, Corporations at worst only see people as consumers, a figure in their bi annual financial readout.

I think that European countries while not perfect have shown that you can have healthy free enterprise and entreprenureal spirit with strong public programs. Do they have to stay frozen in time, NO. Sometimes there has to be tweaking of the systems dependent on the situation.

But still I think that our consumer oriented social darwinism isn't all it's cracked up to be sometimes. It's better for certain things than others, not a one size fits all approach.

Forgive me to be so blunt and bold, but anyone who agrees with the tea party is completely out of touch with reality. The core belief of the tea party is the privatization of every asset. They believe that businesses can take care of all human needs in better than than any government can. This belief is completely deluded, while it is ok to make a business out of many goods and services in society, it is not ok to make a business out of essential goods and services, because the need for profit will always overwrite the concern for society's well being.

Actually that worked in India, where the government is so bureaucratic that nothing works anymore.

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When three puppygirls named after pastries are on top of each other, it is called Eclair a'la menthe et Biscotti aux fraises avec beaucoup de Ricotta sur le dessus.
Most of all, you have to be disciplined and you have to save, even if you hate our current financial system. Because if you don't save, then you're guaranteed to end up with nothing.

Actually that worked in India, where the government is so bureaucratic that nothing works anymore.

And you have to assume that that any and all public services must be bureaucratic nightmares which only the free market can free us from? Wasn't that the punch line that anti healthcare lawmakers were frequently using?

And you have to assume that that any and all public services must be bureaucratic nightmares which only the free market can free us from? Wasn't that the punch line that anti healthcare lawmakers were frequently using?

A free market can work with proper regulations i.e no trading of narcotics, account settlement within contract terms, anti-trust enforcement, etc. The problem now is that the "free market" is dominated by a bunch of Big Corp buying out the government so they can avoid being anti-thrusted in the ass.

It is no different from the Russian oligarchy of only a few providers controlling the price for all. Except that in English, it is called plutocracy.

India's case is different due to something called an "equilibrium shift", where nationalisation of key industries led to serious inefficiency and corruption, thus it shifts in the other direction of de-consolidation. In the US, it is a different matter because privatisation has led to the bigger players buying out the smaller ones, resulting in a "neocron" consolidation.

In India, the private sector has to step in to "free" the markets, whereas in US, the government has to step in to "free" it. But the US government has become too powerless to do anything.

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When three puppygirls named after pastries are on top of each other, it is called Eclair a'la menthe et Biscotti aux fraises avec beaucoup de Ricotta sur le dessus.
Most of all, you have to be disciplined and you have to save, even if you hate our current financial system. Because if you don't save, then you're guaranteed to end up with nothing.

Generally it's just good practice to live by, but I think sometimes we think we invented such a mentality and that no one else lives by it.

What's more it's easier to do the bootstraps when you could work in a factory for good money or college didn't require to sell your organs just to pay for books. It's too expensive these days for a lot of things.

Some times people do need help and welfare keeps them from dying in the streets or hospital beds at any rate. I'm worried about just dismantaling of such programs leaving a large amount of people to fend for themselves in some social darwinist nightmare.

I'm reminded of Eden of the East. In it, the main character started working to understand society and the value of money (and, I suppose, to pay the bills, though that's never clear).

He concluded that "the client's always right" is something the worker should think. Not an excuse for the client to behave like an asshole.

Likewise, I think the bootstrap thing is a fine mentality for oneself. It stops being so when one uses it to bury the less fortunate in the mud, on the pretext they should be able to pull themselves up. And if they think the government makes it harder (personally, I think free education makes it a hell of a lot easier), well, nobody said it was supposed to be easy. Wasn't that their point when they extolled the values of hard work and all?

To clarify my comment on the noblesse oblige, I preferred it because it worked if you were willing to disregard the self-righteous moralism that came with it because it worked, and it kept local communities working/operating. Even if the elite placed themselves in a plane of existence above and beyond the peasantry, at least they were involved enough to keep the peasant world afloat.

The noblesse oblige of these days is an even greater corruption of that self-righteousness now as Vexx says, where the elite force the rest of humanity to abide by their rules and their rules alone. They now believe in a philosophy of absolute lordship now, where their noblesse oblige is to lord themselves over the rest of the people and are "obligated" to "rule" than to "support".

Seriously, that is not noblesse oblige as I know it. N.O as I understand it is something like what Andrew Carnegie or Bill Gates did or is doing.

Cui servire est regnare ("for whom to serve is to rule"). I would like to think that the reverse is also true: To rule is to serve.

Seriously, that is not noblesse oblige as I know it. N.O as I understand it is something like what Andrew Carnegie or Bill Gates did or is doing.

Cui servire est regnare ("for whom to serve is to rule"). I would like to think that the reverse is also true: To rule is to serve.

That's what I would like to think true noblesse oblige to be, but what I've seen and read in history suggests to be that historical noblesse oblige is more rooted to a self-serving moralist high ground determining the function of the elite in general society (something like the so-called "white man's burden") rather than a true sense of altruism from people in a position who can do good for the real good, and not just to fulfill a mandate on a high pedestal.

That's what I would like to think true noblesse oblige to be, but what I've seen and read in history suggests to be that historical noblesse oblige is more rooted to a self-serving moralist high ground determining the function of the elite in general society (something like the so-called "white man's burden") rather than a true sense of altruism from people in a position who can do good for the real good, and not just to fulfill a mandate on a high pedestal.

Ah, that is a given to me. The rich in those days wanted to be more legitimate. But, at least these people still paid lip service to the concept.

Nowadays? They outright spit on it, grab it and toss it into the bin, and show you the middle finger. The rich just don't see the need to appear legitimate now, and they act as though they cannot be stopped. And in many cases, they really can't be.

So more news directly taken from the elusive Observatory for Human Rights in Syria, a group based in London (coincidentally the same place the Muslim Brotherhood have their seat)?
So all news we've had from Syria lately comes from them, yet we have no information whatsoever on who they are, where their sources come from and what their aim is. News agencies don't even bother to check and cross-check. It's quite telling on the current state of "journalism", and on how little critical thinking people have nowadays.

To clarify my comment on the noblesse oblige, I preferred it because it worked if you were willing to disregard the self-righteous moralism that came with it because it worked, and it kept local communities working/operating. Even if the elite placed themselves in a plane of existence above and beyond the peasantry, at least they were involved enough to keep the peasant world afloat.

The noblesse oblige of these days is an even greater corruption of that self-righteousness now as Vexx says, where the elite force the rest of humanity to abide by their rules and their rules alone. They now believe in a philosophy of absolute lordship now, where their noblesse oblige is to lord themselves over the rest of the people and are "obligated" to "rule" than to "support".

Eh, I think it's a rare thing for the nobility to ever care about the welfare of the plebs. Generally they only did things to benefit the plebs if a) it prevented riots or b) it was encoded in law. So the peasantry of Europe were not totally exploited by their overlords as they had ancient rights encoded in law. Often they could redress grievances with their overlords in some kind of court (though not everywhere, in Russia serfs were de facto slaves). The irony is that Peasants were usually bastions of conservatism, in order to protect what few rights they had.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

A free market can work with proper regulations i.e no trading of narcotics, account settlement within contract terms, anti-trust enforcement, etc. The problem now is that the "free market" is dominated by a bunch of Big Corp buying out the government so they can avoid being anti-thrusted in the ass.

It is no different from the Russian oligarchy of only a few providers controlling the price for all. Except that in English, it is called plutocracy.

India's case is different due to something called an "equilibrium shift", where nationalisation of key industries led to serious inefficiency and corruption, thus it shifts in the other direction of de-consolidation. In the US, it is a different matter because privatisation has led to the bigger players buying out the smaller ones, resulting in a "neocron" consolidation.

In India, the private sector has to step in to "free" the markets, whereas in US, the government has to step in to "free" it. But the US government has become too powerless to do anything.

A humourous comparison is Communist China of the pre Deng Xiaoping reforms, where workers spent more time discussing Communist theory then actually working.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

I'm reminded of Eden of the East. In it, the main character started working to understand society and the value of money (and, I suppose, to pay the bills, though that's never clear).

He concluded that "the client's always right" is something the worker should think. Not an excuse for the client to behave like an asshole.

Likewise, I think the bootstrap thing is a fine mentality for oneself. It stops being so when one uses it to bury the less fortunate in the mud, on the pretext they should be able to pull themselves up. And if they think the government makes it harder (personally, I think free education makes it a hell of a lot easier), well, nobody said it was supposed to be easy. Wasn't that their point when they extolled the values of hard work and all?

On Bootstrapping: I think when we overemphasise the "pull up by your bootstraps" ethic we lose sight of the fact that we (humans) are a social speices, and throughout history people have always helped one another in their communities, and given of themselves altruistically. So, for instance, the entire community would come together to build a member a new barn. Likewise if your crops failed, you could depend on your neighbours to help you out by giving you food to tide you over.

Furthermore there was huge emphasis on correct etiquette towards visitors, and it was expected that people would facilitate any guests (be they strangers or not) to a great extent, feeding them over themselves if necessary. Read any kind of ancient myths and you see it all over the place, particularly "gods disguised as traveller" stories.

With the number of people in our society, it's difficult to maintain this kind of mentality, so we must do the next best thing and encode it into law, to avoid a "tragedy of the commons" because we can no longer use social pressure alone to get everyone to give equally.

In essence, the key flaw of "pulling oneself up by one's bootstraps" is that it forgets that we are social beings, we cannot exist alone, and our success is rarely dependent on ourselves alone either.

Eh, I think it's a rare thing for the nobility to ever care about the welfare of the plebs. Generally they only did things to benefit the plebs if a) it prevented riots or b) it was encoded in law. So the peasantry of Europe were not totally exploited by their overlords as they had ancient rights encoded in law. Often they could redress grievances with their overlords in some kind of court (though not everywhere, in Russia serfs were de facto slaves). The irony is that Peasants were usually bastions of conservatism, in order to protect what few rights they had.

Frankly, I think the economy was gonna suck no matter who was in office but whatever. I don't think the President can magically come up with an industry to get people off the uenmployment docket. There are a lot of older workers who are being squeezed out and downsized in a sort of protracted deindustrialization. And no matter who, I don't know what the head of gov can do to stop buisnesses from hording cash.

I just don't see how we can make the huge gains to make a dent in the unemployment to suffice much of anyone really. I've read a lot of commentary saying the high times of the 90s-00s are over and we are unlikely to see such rapid growth anytime soon.

The fun thing will be watching the GOP once their voting base realizes they're going to take personal damage (Social Security, Medicare, farm subsidies, etc) for these antics. And if the compromise with the "across the board cuts in a fail stop" goes in... all their voting base will be on them because if they can't play nicely now with only stupid pride and ego as the issue, it won't get better later.

And yet again... the plutocrats are dancing with the lowest taxes in US history and basically no incentive to support the country in terms of infrastructure or jobs.

Aren't they shipping more jobs overseas than before, even with lower taxes? It's not the taxes that they want to avoid (they're good enough at that already), it's the wages and salaries. They can ship it overseas and pay like $1.75 an hour, or keep it here and pay over $7.00 an hour. Cut wages and salaries by over 75%? You bet they'll jump at that.

The fun thing will be watching the GOP once their voting base realizes they're going to take personal damage (Social Security, Medicare, farm subsidies, etc) for these antics. And if the compromise with the "across the board cuts in a fail stop" goes in... all their voting base will be on them because if they can't play nicely now with only stupid pride and ego as the issue, it won't get better later.

They currently enjoy enormous tax breaks that encourage overseas operations thanks to lobbying ... remove those and there's less incentive to move operations overseas. Yeah they *could* move their HQs to those locations. I can just imagine the delight of CEOs who actually had to live where their factories were.